Personal
by Incidental Vegan Cannibal
Summary: College sophomore Ellie mostly enjoys her job as a phone sex operator. She just wishes some of her regulars weren't so freaking creepy. As if the messed-up fantasies aren't enough, one of her most sadistic callers knows way too much about Ellie's personal life. Stalking, sex work. Discussion of extreme violence/noncon toward nonexistent (even in universe) minor, but no actual sex.


It started out as a pretty normal Monday night.

"Okay, all stocked up for the week." Ellie stuffed the last box of Hot Pockets into the freezer and shut the door. "And I kind of never want to see another Hot Pocket again now. Ramen for dinner it is."

She grabbed a pack of noodles and hunted for a pan. When she realized that they were all soaking in the sink, she opened all the cabinets in search of a bowl and then, failing that, Tupperware.

"Fucking really?" Ellie slammed the cabinet door. "I should have bought some fucking paper bowls. I don't even remember whose turn it is to do dishes. Not mine, I guess."

That was the problem with living with another aged-out foster kid: neither Ellie nor her best friend cared about bullshit like cleaning and cooking. Oh well. Ellie's messiness had driven her first three roommates nuts, and the humiliating mediation sessions with the Resident Director had inspired Ellie to move off campus the second she'd become a sophomore.

Ellie threw the noodle package back in the pantry and made a sandwich, using a folded Pringles lid to scoop peanut butter and jelly onto the bread. She threw the lid into the murky sink water and licked her fingers clean.

At least Riley was equally messy. More than that, though, she really _got_ Ellie. Unlike the first three roommates, Riley hadn't been remotely offended when Ellie had initially stored food in a padlocked cage in the fridge. And when Ellie had sheepishly informed Riley (at three in the morning, no less) that rats had gotten into the secret stash of food Ellie kept in her closet, Riley had just grabbed her shoes and said, "Girl, that's why I hid my food in a metal box. Now, how big were these fuckers?"

Thinking about Riley always made Ellie smile, so she was grinning by the time she settled onto her bed. She took a bite out of her sandwich and glared at the phone next to her bed. She didn't particularly feel like logging in to work just then. Between the loudly sexist asshole in her English class and the creepy middle-aged guy who'd insisted on helping her load her groceries into her trunk, she'd pretty much had her fill of icky guys for the day. But the last thing she and Riley needed was their landlady barging into the messy apartment again, so Ellie picked up the corded phone and hit redial. When it connected, she punched in her ID number and then the number 1.

"You are now logged in," the computer said. "Thank you."

Ellie hung up and took a bite of her sandwich. Immediately, the phone rang. Some fucker must have put Ellie on their alert list.

"Goddammit," Ellie said around a mouthful of sandwich. She was so fucking hungry! She swallowed as fast as she could and gulped down some lukewarm water from the mug next to her bed. She cleared her throat and grabbed the phone off the hook.

"Hi, this is Willow."

"How's my favorite redhead?"

Ellie flopped resignedly against her pillow, her stomach gurgling. "Oh, hey David. I wondered when I'd hear from you again."

"I know. I've missed you. I've been traveling the past couple of weeks."

"Oh? Was it for work or pleasure?" Ellie didn't really care; she was too busy pining over her sandwich.

Why did it have to be David? Why couldn't it have been one of the young dudes who'd already been jacking it for thirty minutes and would explode the second Ellie said the word "pussy"?

"Pleasure, I guess," David said. "So, how has life been treating you?"

"Pretty well," Ellie said. "School is a bitch, but that's my own fault for taking hard classes this semester. Now, go back- you said, 'Pleasure, I guess.' What, did you have to visit annoying relatives or something?"

"No. I've been tracking someone down, just like I would for work, but it's not exactly a paid assignment."

"So why are you doing it?" Ellie asked. "The goodness of your heart? Reuniting families and bringing justice to unsolved murders and all that?"

David laughed. "What makes you assume I track any person down for altruistic purposes?"

Ellie paused. "Y'know, it honestly never occurred to me that someone with bad intentions might hire a private detective. Like, at worst, I figured maybe you'd catch some cheaters. Do you hunt down a lot of people who would be better off left alone?"

"Would it turn you on if I said yes?"

_No!_

"Sure," Ellie said. "For the sake of argument, let's say it turns me on. What kinds of jobs would fall into that category?"

"Oh, plenty," David said, with just a touch of pride in his voice. "I occasionally get the long-lost family member or unsolved murder case, sure. They don't pay the bills, though, and I don't do the cheating cases. I'd say the majority of my gigs are 'black hat.'"

"Give me an example," Ellie said. "I wanna hear this."

"Do you know what the Witness Protection Program is?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Well, when the Mafia-you do know what the Mafia is, right?"

Ellie rolled her eyes as she giggled, "Yup."

"When the Mafia wants to find someone in the Witness Protection Program, they leave me a picture, a name, and a stack of cash, and I hunt the person down."

"And then the mob kills them?"

"I guess so. Them and their families, most likely. I've never bothered to ask."

"Jesus."

"Scary, huh?"

"Yeah." Ellie poked at her sandwich and then licked peanut butter off her finger. "Do you sell out anyone else?"

"No one quite that interesting. A lot of my one-time clients are men whose wives have run off with the kids."

"Like during custody battles?"

"Sometimes. Most of them are domestic violence cases. Women living in shelters or in hiding."

"Wow," Ellie said. "So you tell the abusive husbands where to find their battered wives?

"Yes."

"You know those guys probably kill the women, right?"

"That's not really any of my business," David said. "But you think that's wrong, don't you? Tell me honestly."

"Yeah, that's kind of fucked up, David." Ellie stifled a yawn and opened up her beat-up psychopathology textbook.

"I suspect you'd think even worse of me if you knew who my latest victim was," David said. "I've been looking for this person for months."

"And for no pay? Must be personal."

"It is, in a way. And there's a different kind of payoff," David said. "I guess you could say... some people hunt deer; I hunt people. It's almost a hobby, at this point."

"Jesus Christ, David," Ellie said. "If the NSA is listening in on this, we're both fucked. That is creepy as all hell. I don't know if I'm surprised, though."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, as fucked up as some of your fantasies are, I guess I should have figured you'd have a dark side at work, too. I'm honestly not sure why I thought you were, like, Detective Oprah."

David chuckled. "It's because you have a good heart. If you were a detective, you'd be a white hat. You automatically assume the best about everyone. That's what I like about you. You're so sweet and innocent. You're exactly the kind of girl I'd tie up and stick in the trunk of my car."

Ah, there it was. In a weird way, Ellie was more comfortable with this part of David's calls than all the unsettling small talk.

"David, you know it scares me when you talk about that," Ellie said, forcing the slightest quaver into her voice. "Can't you pick someone else?"

"No. I want you. I want you naked and tied over a splintery sawhorse in my cabin in the woods. Tell me how old you are, baby girl."

Ellie highlighted a particularly relevant paragraph about bias in diagnosing personality disorders. "I'm only eleven! Oh, god, please don't do this! You wouldn't hurt a little girl, would you?"

She could her the faint, wet slaps on the other end: _glop, glop, glop._

"You should have been nicer to me at the grocery store," David said. "I was just trying to help you. Little girls shouldn't be lifting heavy things. They might hurt themselves."

"My mom told me not to talk to strangers!" Ellie protested, her voice a notch higher than usual. It was odd that he was talking about helping girls at the grocery store, after her creepy encounter a few minutes earlier, but that kind of freaky coincidence happened at least twice a week.

"No, that's not it," David said. "You were being an uppity bitch. Someone needs to put you in your place, little girl."

"No, please!" Ellie sniffed the highlighter and made a face. Gross. She didn't even think you could get high off of these things anymore. "I promise I'll be good. Please don't rape me, David."

"I'm not just going to use your body for my pleasure, sweetheart, although that will happen too. I'm going to teach you a lesson you'll never forget. You have no idea what I'm capable of."

Ellie groaned. "Please, David, don't hurt me! I'm sorry; I promise I'll never be rude to anyone again!"

"It's too late for that. I'll start you out easy. How about a spanking?"

"Okay," Ellie sniffed the highlighter harder, hoping it sounded like she was crying a little. Nope, the fumes weren't doing anything for her. "I think I can handle a spanking."

"I know you can, baby girl. But you'd have to take it even if you couldn't. Wouldn't you?"

"Uh huh."

"And how come?"

"Because I'm tied up, and that makes you the boss."

He grunted. "Oh, yeah. That's right, Willow. You know what Daddy likes."

_Daddy?_ Ellie made a gun shape with her hand and pressed it to her temple. "Yeah, I'll do anything, I swear!" she whined. "Please don't hurt me."

"Let me hear those spankings," David said. "I'm going to give you eleven spankings, just enough to turn that little bottom red."

Ellie set the phone on top of her open textbook and started slapping the fleshy part of her arm right next to the speaker. It didn't hurt, but she added plenty of wailing to compensate for that. She was mostly just annoyed that he was taking up both of her hands. But David was one of her best regulars, and rent wasn't gonna pay itself.

"Oh, that's good," David sighed. "That's real good, baby. But you haven't learned your lesson yet. I'm getting out my nail gun-"

"No!" Ellie squealed, tucking the phone between her cheek and shoulder. "No nail gun, please!"

"I can do anything I want to," David said. "I'm going to nail your tiny nipples to this two-by-four."

"Oh god," Ellie whimpered, jotting down a reminder on a sticky note and pressing it into her book. "Please not my nipples, David! Please, I'll do anything!"

There was a soft click from Ellie's door as Riley pushed it open. Ellie covered the mouthpiece while David rambled on.

_"Pizza?"_ Riley mouthed, holding up a stack of bills from her waitressing tips.

Ellie gave her a thumbs up and mouthed,_ "Fuck yeah!"_

_"David?"_ Riley gestured toward the phone.

Ellie nodded. Riley mimed sticking her fingers down her throat and then closed the door without making a sound. Ellie relocated her abandoned PB&J to the stack of books on her nightstand.

"All right," David was saying when Ellie put the phone back to her ear. "I'm about to do the first nipple. Ready?"

There was a noise that sounded suspiciously like an actual nail gun discharging into a piece of wood. Ellie cupped her mouth and screamed in "pain" into the phone.

"Oh, that's such a nice sound," David said. "I love when you scream nice and loud for me. I'm going to do the next one now. Ready?"

Ellie repeated her cry a second time, this time with at least thirty percent more sobbing. "Why are you doing this? Why me?"

"I always pick the foster kids," David said. "No one but me ever teaches them how to treat adults. Plus, they slip right through the cracks. With no family to report them missing, I can do anything I want to them."

Ellie narrowed her eyes at the phone, but she didn't say anything.

"I'm going to take my pliers and pull those pretty white teeth out one at a time," David said. "I wonder which ones are baby teeth? I don't guess it matters, does it? You won't be alive long enough for the permanent teeth to come in."

It was always pretty much the same with David, just like it was always pretty much the same with every regular. There were usually some slight variations-thankfully, he didn't seem interested in videotaping her torture, sawing off her limbs, or gutting her with a machete... yet. But Ellie had played his games often enough to know what he wanted from her and when. She pretended to cry in pain as he pulled all her front teeth out, even spitting out "blood" a few times for him.

"Perfect," David said. "Smile for me, sweetheart."

"No! Fuck you!"

David laughed. "It's just not in your nature to do what you're told, is it? That's okay. With your teeth gone, I can do whatever I want, and you can't do anything to stop me. Let me hear the sound it makes when I slide into your bloody mouth."

Ellie groaned and sucked on two fingers, skimming the personality disorder table in the book.

"Oh yeah," David breathed. "Good girl. Get it all wet with your spit and blood."

_'God, how do I get all the sick fucks?'_ Ellie wondered.

"I'm going to move to the other side of you now. Mm, your little ass is still red from that spanking. You know what I'm going to do to you now?"

"Fuck me?" Ellie sniffled, sitting up in bed.

"That's right, baby girl. I'm going to put it in your ass and pound you until you beg me to kill you."

"No, no, please!" Ellie opened her laptop and checked her school email. "Please, David, I'll do anything you want. Just please, not my ass!"

"Here it comes."

"Ow! Ow! Oh god, it hurts!" Hm, registration was coming up again soon. Ellie needed to sign up with her adviser and figure out which classes to take.

"Yeah," David growled. "Tell me it hurts."

"It really, really hurts! I can't take it!" Maybe Ellie should sign up for another English class with Dr. Clark; she was really liking the one she was taking this semester. "You're too big! Please, David, you know I'm only eleven!"

He did that shuddery breathing that he did when he was close. The bedroom door nudged open again.

"Pizza's on its way," Riley whispered.

Ellie ushered her roommate over and turned up the volume on the phone. Riley pressed her ear in close to the speaker.

"Please just kill me, David!" Ellie begged. "It hurts too bad. Please just stab me with your huge knife and fuck my eleven-year-old asshole while I bleed to death."

David roared like a dying T-rex, the way he always did when he came. Ellie covered the mouthpiece and pressed her lips together, trying hard not to laugh. Riley had to clamp her hand over her mouth and duck away from the phone. David made those noises for another twenty seconds or so, and then he sighed in relief.

"That was great, sweetheart," he said. "You always know just what to say."

"I do my best," Ellie said, glancing at her watch. Fifty-seven minutes. Jackpot. That was sixty dollars she'd have in her bank account before rent was due.

"I'll talk to you again soon," David said. "Have a good night, Ellie."

The line clicked into the dial tone, and Ellie and Riley stared at each other.

"Why did you tell him your real name?" Riley demanded.

"I didn't!" Ellie collapsed onto her bed full of stuffed animals. "Motherfucking goddamn shit. I'm completely fucked."

"Is there anything I can do?" Riley asked.

"Yeah," Ellie said. "Take a knife with you when you get the pizza."


End file.
